Editorial: Good for your face, bad for the fish

Facial soaps can contain plastic scrubbing beads that end up in the Great Lakes

August 11, 2013

Sherri Mason, an associate professor of chemistry with the State University of New York at Fredonia, collects samples from Lake Michigan last week. Mason is part of a research team studying the effects of plastic microbeads, found in found in everything from toothpaste to industrial cleaners, on our water and food supply. (Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune)

For years we've been freaking out about the Asian carp making their way up the Illinois River while another insidious scourge was invading our fresh water supply. Who knew the Great Lakes were being threatened by exfoliating facial scrubs?

Plastic microbeads — some of them fractions of a millimeter long — have been found in water samples from lakes Superior, Huron and Erie. The California researchers who collected them plan to troll lakes Michigan and Ontario next.

The beads are abrasive particles found in everything from toothpaste to liquid hand soaps to industrial cleaners. Lather up, and they provide an invigorating scrub that unclogs pores, removes dead cells and reveals a sparkling new you.

But the beads don't dissolve. They're designed to wash down the drain — after which they make their way into the water treatment system and eventually to our lakes or oceans, where they remain for who knows how long. Worse, they absorb and retain chemical contaminants.

Fish and other water creatures ingest them, either because they look like food or because they're so small they just get sucked in with the plankton or whatever else is for lunch. The pellets — and the contaminants — get passed up the food chain until they land on our plates disguised as pecan-crusted walleye.

The particles are so tiny it's hard to measure how much debris has accumulated in the water. But beauty products containing the beads have proliferated over the last decade or so, thanks to our quest for a polished complexion. The resulting pollutants will be with us for a long time, unless someone invents a way to remove them. Plastic doesn't biodegrade.

Convenience at the expense of the environment is an all-too-familiar story. Disposable diapers deplete natural resources and take years to break down in landfills. Cigarette butts and aluminum pop tops are forever. Plastic grocery bags are a threat to marine animals that mistake them for jellyfish, aka food. Sea turtles can become entangled in those plastic six-pack holders and drown.

Nudged by environmentalists, some beauty supply manufacturers are phasing out plastic microbeads voluntarily. You can encourage this by rejecting products with the ingredient "polyethylene" in favor of those containing scrubbing particles made of borax or ground peach pits. Or go retro and use a washcloth.